Is there a best time for writing?

By Sonja Tan, DTM Pines City TMC, Baguio and Wooster Heights TMC, Connecticut, USA

Sometimes I ask myself: why ever do I write? Do I for the pleasure of my pen gliding through my paper or for the musical cadence from my computer keyboard? Is it because I want to tell a story or is it because there is a story to tell? ... because I want to remember... or rather because I'd want to forget? I don't know. No, I'm not sure - that's what it is. But perhaps I could venture to describe the feeling writing gives me as a beatific or even seraphic rapture. Almost unexplainable for me and kind of beyond my senses.

But whatever it is that I write about, most often than not, depends on the time of day that I do. People, of course, variegate on a number of varied aspects and the best moment for writing doesn't escape the list. Some, for instance, write best at dawn - 2 o'clock in the morning or about 4... a couple more of minutes before that magical sunrise. Some go for the dead of night, starting, say, between the witching hours of 11 and 1. Some sit down for it at about 4 in the afternoon and go on while the sun sets and on to the night. Still, others go for that tight span of time before going to a specific commitment like work, a speaking engagement, an interview. I've also heard of some being able to write only within the embrace of darkness; some only when close to the sound of running water; and some when music, soft or deafening, is available in the background. Idiosyncratic? I'd say, yes! Everybody knows about Edgar Allan Poe as being able to write only when dead drunk!

So when might be the best time for writing? Well, if I were to talk about myself, I'd confess that I do all the above one time or another; that is, except being dead drunk... although I have in mind to try that some time. I know of some writers who put themselves on a rigid schedule - something like choosing a particular time of day and sticking to it on a regularity, whether or not they are productive. I mean, they just have to write something like a page or two, or write a specific number of lines - whether or not they like what they have written at all. But it turns out that after some time, great poetry, or great fiction is generated out of such scribbling, if it may be called such.

Now I'm not sure if I could do that. For me, there are random times as when I sit down in a coffee shop to enjoy how my coffee satiates both my taste and smell pleasures - and I decide then and there to jot down exactly what feeds my senses that very moment. I'd see the color of the grass and the skies from out of the window... notice the people as they go in and out, listen inadvertently to greetings, discussions, arguments. And these are a handful... enough to make my pen work a while. Other times, I sit down at my cellphone's call and as a text message flashes before my eyes, my mind travels past the shadow of the friend who just texted me to remembrances of thoughts, activities, and feelings he has shared with me -and I have a handful... enough to make my pen work a while. What I am saying is that random times can open up my eyes to a waterfall of ideas available right on my hands and at my disposal.

Of course, the flash of inspiration is one that comes at most unguarded moments - inspiration that I must catch and write about immediately lest I lose it. These are the times when I have the nicest, most appropriate words to work with come effortlessly and most languidly, unfortunately, these magic moments come only when they decide to and not when I'd want them to. Which makes it just one more of the good times for writing. In other words, if you ask me - there would be not just one best time for writing because for me, there are a whole lot of these good times. Definitely, the 'best time' would be any of those times when my heart and my mind are at their complementing best... very much like I would look into the yin and yang of tai-chi. End.